Abstract
Why do people fight in modern warfare? More precisely, why do people agree to serve in militaries (formal and informal) actively engaged in warfare? Why do people risk life and limb in such circumstances—particularly in the modern era, when the technologies of death (fully deployed in war) do inflict high numbers of casualties? The broadcast iterations of the Star Trek franchise provide significant insight into the motives of frontline soldiers who engage in war. According to Star Trek, there are two prime reasons people engage in large-scale warfare: (1) defense/empire and (2) justice.
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Notes
Karin Blair, Meaning in Star Trek (New York: Warner, 1977); and “The Garden in the Machine: The Why of Star Trek,” Journal of Popular Culture 13, no. 2 (Fall 1979): 310–19;
Ina Rae Hark, “Star Trek and Television’s Moral Universe,” Extrapolation 20, no. 1 (Spring 1979): 20–37;
Taylor Harrison et al., eds. Enterprise Zones: Critical Positions on Star Trek (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996);
Thomas Richards, The Meaning of Star Trek (New York: Doubleday, 1997);
Daniel Bernardi, Star Trek and History: Race-ing toward a White Future (Newark, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998);
Jon Wagner and Jan Lundeen, Deep Space and Sacred Time: Star Trek in the American Mythos (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998);
Robin Roberts, Sexual Generations: “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and Gender (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999);
Alan N. Sharpio, Star Trek: Technologies of Disappearance (Berlin: Avinus, 2004);
David Greven, Gender and Sexuality in Star Trek: Allegories of Desire in the Television Series and Films (Jefferson, NC: MacFarland, 2009).
Anne Norton, Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004).
Joseph W. Bendersky, Carl Schmitt: Theorist for the Reich (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983).
“The specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy.” Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, expanded ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007 [1929]), 26.
Shadia B. Drury, Leo Strauss and the American Right (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 23.
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© 2015 George A. Gonzalez
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Gonzalez, G.A. (2015). Star Trek: Why Do Soldiers Fight in Modern Warfare?. In: The Politics of Star Trek. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137546326_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137546326_8
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-57755-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-54632-6
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